The Awkward Stages
by Lawler3929
Summary: Megara just moved to a new town, which meant a new High School and more importantly, new people. Her neighbor and classmate, Hercules, has fallen head over heels for her. With new challenges, these 2 will have to make it through the awkward stages.
1. Chapter 1

**The Awkward Stages**

_'Ugh no, I can't be awake...Not now,' _Thought a restless teenager, lying around in bed. She began to open her eyes slowly and stretch out her arms. It was about 8:30 in the morning, time to begin a new.

Slowly, Megara began to crawl out of bed. Normally a person would expect to see pictures, books, even furniture in a bedroom but not Megara. Her family had just moved on account of her father's new job. So Meg's room is filled with closed boxes that she's been to lazy to unpack herself, and a bed with a blanket.

Meg walked downstairs towards the kitchen and saw her mother and father eating at the kitchen table. She loved her parents so much, she couldn't have asked for better ones...if she could ask that is.

"Good morning," Meg said with a tired voice, opening the refrigerator.

"Morning Megara," Meg's mother and father said to her.

Meg's father, Steven, worked as a lawyer in a prestige law firm. His boss recommend he move to a different location, think of it as a promotion. Melina, Megara's mother, doesn't work. She used to have a successful job as a marine biologist, which she has enjoyed her entire life. But because of the move, she had to give it up. So currently she is looking for jobs that may have some kind of interesting qualities.

Being an only child, Meg's parents gave her everything...Well not everything. But she was a major part of their lives, they loved her too much to lose her. They all got along very well, and hopefully nothing would ever change that.

Meg grabbed a bowl of cereal and sat down with her parents. They had very brief conversations, all being very tired. You could say they weren't morning people.

As soon as Meg finished her food, her father told her, "Megara be sure to be clean and dressed in 15 minutes, remember the neighbors invited us over for the afternoon." Regarding this sentence, Meg continued upstairs, rolled her eyes and sighed. Meg never liked meeting new people, she thought it was too awkward of a process. She had no idea that the people in this city were actually...friendly and social. Most of her neighbors back in her old town didn't enjoy interacting with people.

Digging through one of the many boxes in her room, Meg pulled out her usual. A long purple dress, jewelry, and red shoes to match her long red hair...which she pulled back in a pony tail.

_'Sigh...Okay Meg, time to go be social...The joys of being a teenager,'_ Meg thought to herself while brushing her teeth.

As soon as Meg was done getting ready, she walked downstairs and met her parents outside. Their neighborhood was fairly large, with many different kinds of people from different places. One family, the Sons, were from Japan and spoke very little English. A newly wed couple lived just a few houses down from Meg, who go by the names of Elizabeth and Mason.

The house of which Meg and her family were going to was located right across the street, not much of a walking distance unless your extremely lazy.

Meg's father rang the doorbell and waited for someone to come and greet them in. No later than 5 seconds, a tall woman with curly orangish hair answered the door.

"Hello! Welcome to our home, I'm Hera. Please please come inside and make yourself comfortable," she said kindly, and guided them in. "Zeus! Hercules! Our guests have arrived!"

Walking out of a separate room came a tall, muscular man with white hair and a large white beard. "Hello I'm Zeus, it's nice to meet you," he said, shaking each and every one of their hands.

And from behind Zeus came a tall boy with orange hair, blue eyes, and an extremely muscular figure. "Uhh hi, my name's Hercules," he said nervously. Hercules appeared to be the same age as Meg, but what did she know?

"Hercules? What kind of name is that?" Meg whispered in her mother's ear. Her mother nudged her lightly and smiled awkwardly. "Megara, behave," she whispered back.

Meg stuck out her hand to Hercules and said, "Hello, I'm Megara...But you can call me Meg." They shook hands and smiled awkwardly at each other.

"Umm Megara, you could go take a look around the house if you'd like? Hercules would be happy to guide you," Hera said, as she, Zeus, and her parents sat down in their living room.

_'Ugh, no,'_ Meg thought, rolling her eyes in disgust. She could see right through Hercules' strong and "hot" body...At least she thinks she could. Meg nodded her head and followed Hercules up the stairs to the second floor.

Room after room they passed, while Hercules gave brief explanations of what they were. After they passed several rooms, they reached Hercules'.

"And this is my bedroom," Hercules said, opening the door.

Hercules' bedroom was fairly large, like every other room in their house. It had typical guy stuff laying about, weights, several pieces of clothing on the ground, etc.

Hercules sat down on his bed, but Meg continued to stay standing, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"Wouldn't you like to sit down?" Hercules asked.

"Uhh, I'll just sit over here," Meg said while sitting down on the floor. Hercules was puzzled but shook it off.

"So," Hercules began. "How do you like the place?"

Meg thought about it for a while and spoke, "Ehh, it's nice I guess. Friendlier people for sure, but who really cares?"

Hercules gave a faint smile, things weren't going the way he'd hope. Maybe he thought she would open up, so they could become friends?

There was a brief silence before Hercules started to speak up again. "Hey so uhh, you're a Junior in High School this year right?"

Meg turned and nodded her head, un-enthusiastically. "Yes," she began. "Unfortunately..."

"What's wrong? You don't like school?" Hercules asked, moving down to the floor.

Meg raised her shoulders and replied, "I don't know, I guess it's just hard starting in a new place at such a late time...I mean everyone's already friends and all."

"So...You're worried about friends?"

"No, I don't care if I have friends. I can make it fine on my own, but it'd make the process a lot less stressful."

Realizing that she was having an actual open conversation with this kid, Meg stood up and walked towards the door. "I should be going, see you at school." And with that, she descended downstairs.

_'Wow, she really is something...'_ Hercules thought to himself, still sitting on the ground.

Back downstairs, Meg had clearly interrupted a very intellectual conversation. "Umm mom, dad, could I just go back to the house?" she asked.

"Well...sure I guess that'd be okay," Meg's mother said.

Without hesitation, Meg quickly left the house and walked back to her own. _'Ehh, typical male, all he wants to do is get with me,' _Meg thought to herself in disgust. The last thing she wanted was some guy drooling all over her, and following her around like some big wuss. Never again would she fall in love with some douche.

Just last year, Meg had her heart broken by the one man she thought she loved. His name was Adonis. Adonis was everything a girl would want in a guy, he was incredibly charming and handsome. He and Meg got along great, they were always together, practically inseparable. They went to every dance, every sports event, it was perfect.

_One day during his science class, Adonis had decided to get detention...Well not really decide, but he had it coming when he began to talk about "inappropriate" things. He tried to fight his way out of it, but it was too late. It wouldn't have been a big deal, but considering that it was the night of one of his most important basketball games...He just couldn't miss it for stupid detention._

_Adonis told Meg, who felt extremely bad for him, but there wasn't anything she could do to change it. Meg thought about it for a while, and came up with a plan to try and break Adonis out of detention._

_At 3:30, the bell rang and school had ended. Most everyone was getting prepared for the big basketball game against their number one rival school...Everyone but Adonis and Meg. Adonis walked into the classroom and took a seat, closest to the window all the way in the back of the classroom._

_The teacher walked into the classroom and said, "Hello class and welcome to detention." Nobody really seemed to care, they all just sat there in a bored gaze._

_"Well, if anybody needs me, I will be in the Teachers Room. I expect complete and utter silence while I'm gone." And with that, the teacher left the room. After he left, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and began to chat with one another._

_Quickly and quietly, Adonis snuck to the window and opened it. Outside of the window stood Meg with a large ladder leaning up against the building._

_"Okay, climb down slowly and carefully!" Meg whispered...quite loudly._

_Adonis nodded and began stepping out of the window. Being around 3:45 in the afternoon, they were lucky that nobody saw them._

_As soon as Adonis reached the bottom of the ladder, he sprinted towards the gymnasium without hesitation._

_"Hey Adonis! Wait!" Meg yelled, she still had to put the ladder away. Before she knew it, another head poked out of the window and began yelling._

_"Miss Megara, you are in a lot of trouble! Put that ladder down and come straight to the principals office!" The teacher in charge of detention yelled. Meg turned her head in panic, but Adonis was already long gone._

_Meg went to the principals office and discussed the situation. There wasn't much she could lie about, it all seemed pretty clear that she helped him escape. The principal sentenced her to 2 weeks of detention, after school at 3:30._

_For the remaining hour, Meg sat quietly in detention. She had to have such a troublesome boyfriend, but she loved him for that. It still confused her to that day that...There were hundreds of other guys at school, and she chose him. But she has always been happy with her decision._

_The bell rang at 4:30, and Meg couldn't have been more relieved. The game had already ended, so she was going to talk to Adonis and find out how it ended._

_She struggled through a crowd of people, and found Adonis still standing out on the court, but he wasn't alone. In plain sight, Adonis was making out with Alice, the class whore. Meg took a double take, for a second she thought she had the wrong person, but it was him. She didn't know what to think, there were too many things going through her mind at once._

_'Wh-What? How could this be happening, I thought he loved me,' Meg thought to herself, her hand covering her mouth in shock. What was she supposed to do now? She wasn't anything without Adonis, she was her __**everything**__._

_Meg slowly walked down the stairs and onto the court. Adonis heard the noise and quickly pulled away from Alice, being the only 3 people in the room._

_"M-Meg? What are you doing here, I thought you were in detention?" He asked calmly and cooly._

_Meg took in a deep breath and said, "I was, but now it's over and so are we." She had never thought those words would come out of her mouth. That's not what she wanted to say at all, Meg wanted to fall into his arms and say things like, "What did I do wrong?" and "I can change, if you want I can change!"_

_She began to walk away, tears starting to stream down her face. Just as she was about to leave, she heard Alice say, "See ya biotch!"_

_Meg didn't even want to reply, she was to hurt. And the sudden shock caused her voice to be scratchy. She was nothing now, she could never really learn to love someone else again._

As soon as Meg got inside of her house, that same scene continued to run through her head. But she decided to shake it off and take a nap, she wasn't really up to meeting other people. Meg hiked the stairs, fell into her bed, and fell asleep.

**It's a little rough right now, I'm not that great of a writer. I hope to finish this, and maybe a sequel? It depends if I have the mental capacity to write another one. ;) Please REVIEW, I need as many tips as possible.**

**XOXO  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Awkward Stages - Chapter 2**

The next few days seemed to pass by extremely quickly, which was extremely unfortunate for Megara. Like so many other people of the world, she did not want to go to school, but for different reasons than theirs. First of all, she was in a completely new school which meant that she didn't know the people, teachers, or even how to get around the school. No doubt that she would get lost within the first 46 seconds.

_'Hmm...I do have that Hercules guy,' _Meg thought to herself, but caught herself before she reached the end of the sentence. '_Have him? I do no __**have**__ him, he and I are not and never will be associated with each other.' _But what did she care, it was too early to start stressing out, being 6:45 in the morning.

Meg sighed and slowly crawled out of bed, hunched back and cold feet. She rummaged through her closet, which she had finally unpacked, and picked out her usual purple dress. Meg thought, '_Hey, why would I need to try to dress and impress these people?'_

As soon as Meg was finished getting ready, she headed downstairs only to be caught off guard by a flash of light. _'CLICK!'_ went the camera. Meg almost fell down from the shock, she hates camera flashes. It was her parents holding cameras looking cheerful.

"Umm," Meg began, rubbing her eyes. "Why, may I ask, are we so excited this morning?"

"Becauusee it's your first day of school!! Well...Not your FIRST day, but you know what I mean," Meg's mother said to her, taking another picture.

Megara sighed and went into the kitchen for a brief moment. She wasn't too hungry, so she just grabbed a banana on the go.

"Okay guys, I guess I'll be off now, bye," Meg said to her parents while heading towards the door.

Just before Meg reached the door, her parents came running and hugged her. It would be an understatement to say that Meg was borderline **suffocated**. As soon as her parents withdrew themselves, she headed towards their garage and got inside of her car. Her car wasn't exactly anything super special or super expensive, but it was a nice car. At least she wouldn't have to worry about being picked on for having a nice car, you know those jealous types.

Meg seemed to have an alright idea of how to get to school. Take a right, then a left, then the third turn on the right, and then you head down that road for a mile or two...Well, she'll get their eventually, and that's good enough.

Twenty minutes later, Meg FINALLY managed to reach the high school. She pulled into the parking lot and it came to her surprise that all of the parking spaces had been filled. _'Shit,'_ Meg thought to herself, what was she supposed to do now? Meg noticed that practically all of the kids had already gone inside, so she was running out of time to make a decision.

Meg settled on parking her car on a small patch of grass left of the parking lot, better than...well that's as horrible as it gets. She ran inside of the building only to be engulfed by a humungous sea of people, standing around and talking with one another.

'_Great,' _Meg thought. _'What am I supposed to do now?' _Out of the corner of her eye, Meg had saw a desk with a sign that read "Schedules". Slowly, Meg walked over to one of the women working the desk. She stared at Meg for a while, just as awkward as you could imagine. _'What the hell is she waiting for?' _Meg thought to herself.

The woman sighed and said rudely, "Well? Are you going to tell me your name or not?" Oh right, the woman needed to know her name in order to give her her schedule...That's a bit embarrassing.

"Megara," Meg said blandly, she figured that **nobody** in the rest of the school would have that name, so why give her last?

The woman scrolled through the pile of papers she had sitting on the desk, and finally stopped at one which she pulled out. She handed the paper to Megara containing her schedule, rather unenthusiastically but fast none the less.

Meg walked down the hall of people very slowly, reading and trying to memorize each individual class she had one after another. The first thing she saw read "First Period: ENGLISH-Rm.102". Meg nodded her head to herself and took in a deep breath, this is it. Just before she could start finding her way to room 102, she was stopped by someone calling her name. What? Nobody knew her, she must have had "Megara" taped on her back or something.

Meg turned her head back and saw Hercules walking up, waving his hand innocently. _'Oh great, it's him.'_ Meg discretely raised her hand and waved it, then tucked it back to her side. While Hercules approached her, Meg noticed that there were minimum of 10 girls just standing around and staring at him. That's not weird or stalkerish in any sort of way...

"Uhh hey Meg! It's really good to see you," Hercules said with a hint of excitement.

Meg nodded her head and said, "Likewise."

Hercules' eyes drifted and saw that she was carrying her schedule, so he reached for it and asked, "May I take a look at your schedule?" Meg nodded again and handed it to him, as he pulled out his.

"English, Algebra 2, Bio--Woah, we...we have identical schedules," Hercules said in amazement.

_'Oh no, now I'm never going to get rid of this guy,'_ Meg thought, cursing to herself. She looked up and saw his face glow like she had never seen before, perfect. He handed her back her schedule, and smiled. The stalker-students standing on the side sighed and had disappointment written all over their faces, guess they weren't the ones Hercules was thinking about.

"Well, do you want to walk over to English together?" Hercules asked politely.

"I guess so, I don't exactly know my way around this place," Meg replied monotone.

Hercules smiled and began to walk, with Meg slightly falling behind.

Just as they reached the next hallway, they heard loud running footsteps behind them. Meg turned around to find a strange looking kid running after Hercules. The kid couldn't stop in time and ended up hitting Hercules and almost knocking him over.

"Hey!--Oh hey Philip! How's it going?" Hercules said to the strange looking Peg. Peg just nodded his head and smiled. _'Why isn't this kid saying anything?' _Meg thought to herself.

"Oh, you're still in recovery, right?" Hercules asked, and Peg nodded in response.

Hercules turned to Meg and explained, "Peg just recently had minor surgery on his throat, so he's still recovering. He's a man of few words anyways." Peg nodded, and then stared at Meg for a few seconds...Awkward seconds.

"Well, I'll see you later, Peg. Meg and I have gotta go to class, bye!" Hercules said, and then he and Meg departed to English class. It was silent until they reached room 102, English class.

They walked into the classroom together and chose random seats to sit at. _'What now, just because we have the same classes does __**not**__ mean he can sit beside me,'_ Meg thought to herself, giving Hercules a discrete death stare.

_DING! _Went the bell, and everyone in the classroom took their seats as well. It was about a 1 minute delay until the teacher finally managed to reach the room.

"Good morning class, welcome back to High School!" He said with much enthusiasm. "My name is Mr. Cookson, and this is your English class...If it isn't then you're in the wrong place and I'll write you a pass."

Mr. Cookson began to ruffle through some papers and then sat down at his desk. "Okay, let's begin with attendance, make sure nobody is cutting class. Jacob?"

"Here!"

"Good, let's see...Alicia?"

"Huh?"

"It's attendance, just say here..."

"Oh, here!"

The list continued on and on, and Meg soon began to grow bored. She turned her head over to Hercules, who's head was resting on his hands in a tired position. Hercules stuck his tongue out and went partially cross-eyed, trying to be humorous. Meg managed to crack the faintest smile she could, just to avoid being rude.

"Megara?"

Meg hadn't heard her name being called, until about 20 seconds later when she realized she was staring full out at Hercules.

"Uhh, here!" She exclaimed, quickly gathering herself together. Meg noticed girls sitting around her roll their eyes, and Hercules just smiled.

"But call me Meg," Meg told the teacher, who didn't seem to hear her. She sighed and then rested back in her desk.

The next 30 minutes seemed like a blur to Meg, she didn't care the slightest bit. All Mr. Cookson talked about was class expectations, rules, and other boring things. Meg continued to zone out until she heard the word, "Project". What? A project, on the first day?

"Yes you heard right, you guys are going to be starting a project, today actually," Mr. Cookson announced to the class.

One kid raised his hand and asked, "Do we get to have partners?"

The teacher nodded and replied, "Yes you do, in fact, why don't you all just go on and choose your partners now."

All at once, everyone stood up and walked over to their destined partners. Practically every single girl ran over to Hercules desk and started yelling things like, "Hercules, you and I should be partners!" and "No! Hercules, be my partner!" Hercules didn't respond, he tried his best to back away. Meg rolled her eyes and walked away from the huge crowd, hoping she herself would find a partner.

"Well umm actually...I was hoping to be partners with someone else," Hercules said, and the excitement died down immensely.

"With who?" rudely said by the girl named Alicia.

Hercules turned his head over in Megara's direction, and the other girls head's followed suit. "With Meg," Hercules said.

_'Wait a second, did Hercules just say __**my**__ name? Why would he want me as a partner?' _Meg thought to herself, knowing she was currently being stared down by a bunch of jealous girls. She turned her head and locked eyes with Hercules, giving him an "are you serious" kind of look. He nodded his head and moved over with her, ignoring the other girls.

"Ehem..." said Mr. Cookson, breaking up the commotion. After another few seconds, everyone finally sat down with their partners.

"This project should be simple, GET TO KNOW YOUR PARTNER!" He exclaimed with joy. Everyone in the class groaned, what a stupid project.

"Calm down everyone, nothing **too** personal. Just the basics, oh and I'd like you to exchange phone numbers as well," he explained to the class.

Meg and Hercules exchanged awkward glances with each other, things were going far better than Hercules expected. Not so much for Meg, though.

The bell rang and everyone rushed out of the classroom as quickly as possible. The rest of the day went by extremely slow, everyone talking about rules and what not. By the end of the day Meg had finally located her locker, so she stood there unloading books and binders into it. Hercules came up from the side of the lockers and greeted her, "Hey Meg."

"Oh, hello there Hercules," she said, closing her locker.

They began to walk together, in the direction of the parking lot. "Hey, do you want to maybe hang out and do our "english project" together?" He asked sounding hopeful.

Meg contemplated it for a while, scrolling through the ups and downs. But finally she said, "Yeah sure, where?"

"Well we could grab a bite to eat at a restaurant," Hercules suggested honestly.

Meg raised an eyebrow, okay now things were moving way too fast. This question really caught her off guard, but she finally thought it would be an okay idea.

"Sure," Meg said. "Why not?"

By the time they finished their conversation, they reached Meg's car in the patch of grass. "Alright, you just follow me, okay?" Hercules told her as she got into her car.

Meg nodded, and Hercules departed to his own car. He pulled out, and Meg followed directly after, making sure not to get lost.

As she was driving, Meg pulled out her cell phone to call her parents and notify them about the recent change in plans.

"Hello?" Meg's mother asked over the phone.

"Hey mom," Meg began. "There's been a change of plans, I have to do this project with this kid in my class. So we're going to some restaurant and grabbing a bite to eat while we work on it."

Meg's mother squealed and replied, "Ohh Meg that's so exciting, you and another boy! Who is it? What's his name?"

Meg sighed and rolled her eyes. "You know our neighbor, Hercules, it's him."

"OHH! That's so cute! Well you have fun on your little date, hun!" Meg's mom exclaimed in a high annoying voice.

"Mom! It's not a date, it's a sophisticated get together. We're doing homework, so it's not anything special," Meg explained to her mom. No way would she ever consider this a date, that would be utterly ridiculous.

"Now Megara you need to start acting your age, I've got to go. Have fun!" Meg's mother said, and then left.

Meg hung up the phone, and just as they pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant called the Poison Ivy. She didn't want to get out of her car, but she knew she had to within the next minute or so. Why was it so crucial to be social during these times in High School?

**I'm soo sorry the update took so long...I blame education. :| But anyways, I hope you're liking it. I plan on making this story NOT for the faint of heart, there's soo much more to come. I have a whole list of ideas. :] JUST HIT THAT REVIEW BUTTON AND WE'LL SEE WHERE THAT TAKES US.**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Awkward Stages - Chapter 3**

**When I was writing this I completely forgot a small tiny detail...I DON'T OWN HERCULES. If I did, do you think I would be spending a quarter of my time doing this? I don't think so, and now onto the story.**

As Meg pulled into the parking lot of the Poison Ivy, she saw Hercules unlatch his seatbelt and get out of his car. Meg sighed and did the same, as slowly as possible. It's not that she didn't like the guy, but she didn't want to have a close relationship with him...with anyone for a fact.

Meg closed the door to her car and followed Hercules inside of the restaurant, Hercules holding all of the doors like the perfect gentlemen he was. Meg sighed and thought, _'How degrading...'_ They approached the podium where one of the staff members of the restaurant was standing, rather pleasantly.

"Hello, and welcome to the Poison Ivy!" She said joyfully and full of energy. "How many?" The woman asked.

Hercules smiled and replied, "Just two, please."

The woman nodded her head and scribbled something down on a piece of paper lying on the podium. She winked her eye at both Hercules and Megara, grabbed two menus, and began to walk. "This way please."

_'What? She probably thinks Hercules and I are romantically involved...Gosh some people.'_

Hercules and Megara were guided to a table for two on the far left side of the restaurant, only to be surrounded by a small amount of people. Hercules walked over to Meg's side to pull her chair out for her, but Meg stopped him and said, "I'm pretty sure I can do this myself."

Awkwardly, Hercules smiled and rushed back to his own seat. The waitress handed them each menus and spoke, "Hello, my name is Maria and I will be serving you two today. Can I get you something to drink?"

Meg thought about it for a moment and replied, "I'll just have a water, please."

"Hmm...I guess I'll have a lemonade please," Hercules said pleasantly.

Maria scribbled their drinks down quickly, and then left back to the kitchen.

Megara tried to refrain from eye contact with the man across from her as long as possible, but her plan soon failed when they're eyes met and Hercules smiled. "So," Hercules began. "What do you think you'll have to eat?"

Meg looked through the menu, trying hard to decide what exactly she will order. After a few long seconds of decision, Meg finally said, "I think I'll have a small pasta with alfredo sauce. I'm not very hungry."

Hercules nodded and said, "Yeah that sounds pretty good, I might get some too."

They sat in silence for a while until Maria returned with their drinks. "Here you are," she said, setting the water and lemonade on the table. "So, have you had enough time to decide on your meals?"

"Yes we have, we'll both have a small pasta. Mine with marinara sauce and hers with alfredo, please," Hercules said to Maria, who was quickly jotting down everything. She smiled, nodded her head, and departed back to the kitchen again.

_'Ugh, I don't need him ordering for me,'_ Meg thought to herself, looking at Hercules with such disgust, but quickly changed faces when he looked at her.

Hercules smiled and broke the silence, "So Meg, what exactly are we supposed to find out about each other?"

"Not sure, Mr. Cookson was pretty vague with the whole "project" thing. Guess just the simple basics," Meg replied unenthused.

"Yeah, so what was it like in your old town before you moved here?" Hercules asked as he took a sip of his lemonade.

Quietly, Meg sighed and looked down at her lap. _Horrible, awful, disgusting, a living hell, _were all of the kinds of things she wanted to say about her old home, especially the people. Meg shrugged and replied, "Different. I guess you could say that the people were a lot worse."

Hercules looked at Megara with slight confusion. "Could you explain?"

Silently, Meg cursed to herself, this guy would never understand about those horrible people out there, how could he? All of this life he's been with the perfect people and has never truly faced reality, what cruel things this world can do to you if you're not careful.

"Well, they're just not the friendliest people in the whole world, mostly the kids at school," Meg began. "I used to like it there, but then things changed...people changed." Meg's eyes all of a sudden became heavier, and she stared at the ground in deep thought.

Hercules didn't exactly know what to say next, it was obviously something she did not want to talk about. He was feeling curious so he thought he would ask another question, hoping she wouldn't freak out. "What then made you dislike it?"

Meg lifted her head and stared at Hercules as if he had just asked her what gender she was. She thought for a moment, what would be the best way to respond to a question like that? The answer was obvious, the part that was making it difficult was telling him, in fear that it would happen again.

She began to have a huge mental war going on inside of her head, "tell him" vs. "don't tell him". So far, "don't tell him" was winning by a long shot. The reason to her madness was complicated to say the least, how pathetic would he think she was if she told him? Would he tell everyone else at the school? Then what would the world think of her? They would all just think they can go around hurting her, _Oh look it's Meg, let's step on her today because we feel like it._

Without thinking or even saying anything, Megara launched up from her seat and left the restaurant receiving odd looks from people. They didn't matter though, nothing did, just going home. She could only imagine what Hercules was doing or even thinking at that moment. He was probably thinking to himself, _'What a freak, I can't believe I have to live right across from her,'_ and _'Wait until I tell everyone at school just how weak this girl is.'_ But that wasn't the case at all, not in the slightest bit.

It took a few seconds for Hercules to realize that Meg had rushed out of the restaurant, he had too many thoughts going around in his head. Then his next initial reaction was to go after her, which he did of course. He reached the exit of the restaurant but it was too late, her car was already speeding down the road.

Hercules sighed, what an idiot he was to asking such personal questions. Whatever the problem, it was obvious it was too much for her, plus the fact that they barely knew each other at all. What a great way to end the day...

Hercules hopped into his car, with way too many thoughts rushing through his head. About ten minutes later he reached his house. Before he entered his house, he turned his head in hopes to see Meg outside somewhere so they could talk, but nobody was there.

--------------------------------------------

Meg had locked herself in her room after an uncomfortable run in with her parents downstairs. They bombarded her with all sorts of questions, probably thinking they would all of a sudden be in love or whatever. She just wanted to cry, but she didn't. It was too stupid of a reason to be crying, wasting tears on this when she could be crying about something else.

Oh how she wished she wasn't in this position, why couldn't life be simple? The only place where Meg got any sign of hope was in her dreams, where everything was easy, everything was going to be okay. Her favorite quote at the moment was, "If I can only be happy in my dreams, then let me sleep forever." Well she changed it a bit, the other didn't exactly describe her situation.

She didn't want to blame anyone for her problems, it would just be a waste of her time. There wasn't exactly any specific person to blame...well besides Adonis, but he's the exception. The exception. Most of her problems bringing Meg down redirected back to him, the man whom she thought had loved her in return. Now that she thought of it, Adonis was a pretty stupid name to give a kid. But more importantly, he's in the past where he will remain for as long as Meg lived...Or at least she hoped so.

Meg was done for now, she was tired and fed up. She pulled out her mp3 player, plugged her earphones securely into her ears, and drifted off into a not so peaceful slumber.

--------------------------------------------

Downstairs, Meg's mother and father were quietly discussing what they thought could have been going on. "It's obvious things didn't go as well as we thought they might have," Meg's father mentioned.

"Umm, you think? She's been really depressed lately," she replied. They sat around in the living room, continuing to talk about their D.I.D.- daughter in distress. ( :] )

As they continued to talk, the doorbell rang. Who would be coming to their house for any kind of reason? Meg's mother shrugged her shoulders, and stood up to answer the door. She pulled open the door and there standing before her was none other than Hercules.

It would be obvious to say that Meg's mother was in shock, but in relief as well, maybe he could cheer her up...or was he the source of the problem? "Oh well hello there Hercules," she said.

"Hello, umm I was wondering if I could speak to Megara right now," he said sounding hopeful.

"I'm sorry Hercules, she's actually taking a rest right now. But you're welcome to come inside anyways," her mother replied.

Hercules nodded his head and made his way inside of the house. He really enjoyed the way they decided to decorate the house, very vibrant and full of life. He took a seat on a rather comfortable chair across from the couch where both Meg's parents sat.

"Just incase you don't remember, I'm Steven, and this is my wife, Melina," Steven said to Hercules. Hercules smiled and began to fiddle with his fingers.

"So," Melina began, "What brought you over here?"

Hercules didn't exactly know what to tell them, how much did they know? Had Meg told them everything that had happened? All of these questions began flowing in and out of his mind, but he finally replied, "Well, we were at a restaurant getting something to eat while we did one of our projects for our English class."

"Oh yes, Meg told me you two were together today," Meg's mother said.

"Yes, well we sat and began to talk," Hercules began to explain. "Our project was to find out more about each other, so I asked her what her old town was like. Then she told me it was different, the people there weren't as nice as the ones here. When she told me that she used to like it there, I asked her what it was that caused her to change her mind. That was when she got upset, and left the restaurant."

The whole time Steven and Melina were nodding their heads in interest and concern. Both had a pretty good idea of what it was that Meg was so upset about.

"Hercules, it was very nice of you to come by, it's nice to know you care for our daughter," Steven said. "You should probably know what it is that makes Meg so upset most of the time."

Hercules hadn't expected for them to tell him, but he was glad that they were giving him more information. It would make things easier, get to know her and the situation a little bit better.

"Well, what happened had to do with Meg and her past boyfriend, Adonis," Meg's mother began. Hmm, an ex boyfriend? That's what this whole thing is about? He must have hurt her bad for Meg to be acting like this.

"It's quite a long story, but what I can tell you is...Meg caught Adonis cheating on her with some other blonde girl," Steven explained.

Hercules was nothing short of angry, it bewildered him to know that this had happened to her. **How** and **why** would somebody do this to her? Meg's the perfect girl, anybody who wouldn't think so is extremely unaware of what they're missing. Really, Hercules just wanted to run up to her room and give her a hug, all he wanted to do was make the pain go away.

"I-I'm very sorry, you didn't have to tell me," Hercules said in a concerned tone.

"No no no," Melina began. "You had every right to know."

Hercules gave off a smile to be polite, but it was not the time to be smiling. They sat in silence for a few seconds until they heard footsteps coming from the stairs. Steven, Melina, and Hercules turned their heads towards the stairs all at the same time. Coming down from the stairs was Megara, who seemed rather calm until she saw Hercules sitting there. Her eyes widened.

"What do you think you're doing here?"

**OOOOOOHHHHH, dun dun dunnn. :D Please review, I really appreciate people bagging on my story so I know what to fix. (No sarcasm intended)  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**The Awkward Stages - Chapter 4**

**Yeah...Still don't own it, but I'll let you know if it ever happens. _ Oh, and don't be expecting updates like every other day, I've just had a decent amount of time on my hands, and I'm really determined to finish this. Maybe shoot for the best Hercules fic on the web?? Haha yeah right...ANYWAYS!**

"What do you think you're doing here?" Meg asked, or rather demanded. Well...Was it a stupid question to ask? Of course not, she had every right to know exactly what this guy was doing in her house? And more importantly, **why** her parents allowed him inside?

There was silence, Hercules felt pressured so he couldn't exactly come up with a great explanation. "Well, I-uhh, I wanted to see i-if you were okay," he began to explain, tripping over words as he went.

Steven and Melina exchanged worried looks with each other, it's not a very likely option that Meg would let him off the hook that easy.

Meg sighed and crossed her arms, staring Hercules down with great suspicion. "Hmm, how kind of you," she said sarcastically. What business did he have, waltzing right into her house to check on her as if they were best friends? Meg turned her head to her parents, demanding some sort of explanation to their actions. "Why did you let him in here?"

"Megara, he came to see if you were alright, you only owe him that much," Meg's mother replied in a slight arguing tone.

Meg rolled her eyes and argued back, "I don't owe him anything."

Steven crossed his arms and stared down Meg, how he had raised her to act like this was beyond him. Hercules standing awkwardly in the middle of their argument made himself present again. "Look I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have come. I should be going, goodbye." And with that, Hercules turned around very disappointed, and headed out towards the door.

Both of Meg's parents gave her a very disappointed look, which seemed to cause her to regret her actions a slight bit. Melina tilted her head in Hercules' direction, not because of a twitch, but because she gave Meg the signal to go talk to him. Meg rolled her eyes and sighed. She thought about it for a moment, and then decided that it was the right thing to do.

Meg walked down the remaining few steps and approached Hercules just as he was about to walk across the street, back to his own house. "Hercules! Hercules wait," Meg said, running after him.

Hercules turned around to see Meg only slightly out of breath in front of him. He pursed his lips and gave off a sad look, a look that made Meg feel extremely guilty. It wasn't like this was the first time Meg felt bad about doing something, but she hated admitting that she was wrong. "Yes Meg?" Hercules asked, not in the same joyful tone he usually had.

"I-I just wanted to apologize for my actions," Meg replied. She deep down and truly was sorry, but not as much as she was making it seem.

Hercules simply just shrugged his shoulders and stared at the ground. "You don't have to apologize just because your parents told you to," he said.

Meg was taken aback a bit. She had just told him that she was sorry, and he doesn't think she's telling the truth? Well he had another thing coming. "No, I am honestly and truthfully sorry," Meg repeated with more feeling in her voice.

Hercules looked her in the eyes and nodded his head. He thought, _'Wow, she really has beautiful eyes...Deceiving, but beautiful.'_

Once Meg had realized he was looking her in the eyes, she turned her head in another direction. She never did enjoy looking people in the eyes, it wasn't because she was lying, but because she was shy. Meg didn't want to believe it, but she knew that just simply saying she was sorry wasn't enough. She had to take it one step further, oh well...

"Hey, how about this. Let's go for a walk, and we can...talk for a while," Meg said. She had no idea why, it could have been the spur of the moment, but it totally went against everything she "believed" in. Whatever the motivation, it had already been said...Oh well.

That really knocked Hercules off guard, he did **not** see that coming. Well, what was he going to say? Yes obviously, it would give her a chance to explain things more, and maybe they could become friends. The last thing he wanted was for her to hate him until graduation next year.

Hercules nodded his head and smiled. "Sure, sounds like a good idea."

Meg smiled in return, and began to walk down the sidewalk with Hercules by her side. She had no idea where they were headed, but they'll figure that out later.

Meg sighed and began thinking to herself, where on earth was she supposed to begin their conversation? She started off with, "I guess you're wondering what made me so upset back at the restaurant, right?"

Hercules shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well actually, I do know a little...About your ex-boyfriend and all."

WOAH, what did he say? He knew already? _'Ugh of course, my parents probably told him...Fantastic,'_ Meg thought to herself.

"My parents told you, didn't they?" Meg asked him, clearly suspicious.

Hercules chuckled a bit and replied, "Yeah they did, they didn't tell me much." He didn't want to say it out in the broad, he knew it made her feel uncomfortable.

Meg sighed, will there ever be justice in this world? "Well, I guess I should tell you everything if you want," Meg said. Frankly, she didn't want to tell him, but he already knew the general idea, so what could it hurt?

"You can spare me the details if you want," Hercules told her completely honest, he didn't care if he knew everything. He just wanted Meg to be alright.

"Well there's not exactly much to it, just the typical male. He was tall, reasonably long blonde hair, and on the school's basketball team," Meg began to explain. "He got a detention on one of the biggest game days of the school year, just for being a dim-witted idiot. I managed to break him out, but I was caught and sent to detention for the next few weeks."

Hercules nodded his head through her explanation, capturing every detail. Although a serious moment, he couldn't help but notice just how gorgeous Meg was. She wasn't like the other girls he'd seen at school or anywhere else, she was well kept together, she was special. He listened to her talk about walking in on her boyfriend Adonis, making out with some other girl named...Alice? It was hard to try and comfort her because Hercules couldn't exactly relate to the situation. To be honest, Hercules had never been in a real serious relationship with anyone. Just maybe 4 to 5 girls he's actually tried dating?

Meg finished her explaining her experience and became silent, thinking over what had just happened. _'Hmm, maybe I was wrong about this guy. He seems to be...honest,_' Meg thought to herself. Sure she was opening up far more than she would have liked, but she had to admit it felt kind of good to tell someone.

They continued to walk for several more minutes, not knowing where but that wasn't important. There was a slight chill in the air and the sun was setting out in the distance. Both decided to stop and take a rest at a nearby bench on the sidewalk, it was then that they noticed they were walking along side of a park. Not the kind with obnoxious jungle gyms and games, but the calm and serene type where people go to just relax and bask in the glory of life.

"So," Meg began. "Tell me something about yourself, you already know a lot about me."

Hercules nodded his head and thought about it, besides sports he wasn't a very interesting guy. "Well, I like to play sports, mostly football," Hercules said, still thinking.

Meg nodded her head, well at least it's not another air head basket ball player. But she still had to keep her guard up.

"To be honest, I'm not a very interesting guy," Hercules said as he laughed. Meg smiled to herself, he was extremely modest.

They sat together for a while until Hercules brought something up that he was unsure he should've asked in the first place. "Hey Meg, would you ever consider dating again?"

Alright, if that didn't give **anything** away, then nothing else would. Meg didn't really know how to respond, although it was a simple yes or no question, it was much more than that. She always figured that she had had enough dating with guys, they're all just trouble in her eyes. Why would she need a guy to keep her back anyways? She could make it in this world fine by herself, the last thing she wanted was some guy following her every step of the way.

"Well," Meg began, feeling a bit uncomfortable. "I haven't really thought about it. Probably not, it's just too complicated for me."

"Oh," Hercules replied, nodding his head. The sun has almost set in the distance, and the sky is a calming purplish orangish color...If that makes any sense at all.

Meg checked her wrist for the time...but then remembered she didn't own a watch. She turned to Hercules and said, "It's getting late, I should probably be getting home." Hercules agreed and smiled. He stood up first, then held out his hand to help Megara stand. She moved her hand cautiously towards his. Hercules noticed her suspicion and said, "Don't worry, I won't bite or anything."

Meg smiled awkwardly, almost as if she thought he was lying. Finally she took his hand, and stood up off of the bench. The walk home took almost as long as it did getting there, but that wasn't exactly an issue. Hercules seemed to have had fun, and Meg didn't seem to mind it either. Strange enough, Meg began considering Hercules as a friend. Even though she didn't **love** the idea, she knew it was inevitable and that it was going to happen regardless.

About 10 minutes later they reached Meg's house, the lights were out meaning her parents were sleeping...Even though it was only like 9 o'clock, but they had to rise early. They stepped up onto Meg's front steps and stopped in front of the door. _'Haha, kind of like those dumb romance movies,'_ Meg thought to herself, but she wasn't going to let anything happen tonight.

Hercules gave off a cute boyish smile and said, "Well, goodbye Meg. I'll see you at school tomorrow."

Meg slightly smiled back and replied, "Yeah, goodnight." She opened the door and stepped inside, leaving the door open to return the wave that Hercules sent to her. She saw Hercules turned around and crossed the street back to his own house, then shut the door. _'Guess this year won't be as hard as I thought.'_ Meg thought as she walked upstairs towards her room.

Meg's suspicions were correct, her parents were both sound asleep in each others arms. She smiled to herself, and quietly went to her room. After a seriously strange and weird day, it's nice to unwind and just relax for a bit. Meg pulled her pajamas on...nothing special, just an old v-neck and comfortable pants. She lied down on her bed and listened to her favorite music, thinking about all sorts of things.

After a few songs played, Meg felt the vibration of her phone lying on her bed. She paused the music, took out the headphones, and picked up the phone. The caller I.D. simply just said "Unknown Number". Ehh, what could it hurt? Meg pressed the big button with the green phone icon on it, and brought the phone up to her head.

"Hello?" Meg asked the caller on the other side.

"Hey there, Meg," the person answered back in a serious yet seductive kind of tone.

"Oh my god."

**Woah, I have no idea what motivated me to write it like this...But we'll see where that takes us. Oh by the way, sorry if you got like 3 notifications saying I put up a new chapter. I can be seriously stupid sometimes, and had to delete and put up this chapter like twice...My bad. :]**

**XOXO  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**The Awkward Stages - Chapter 5**

**OF COURSE I DON'T OWN HERCULES. Gosh, some people. Oh, remember how I said that this story wasn't for the faint of heart? Yeah, hold on to that please.**

Meg completely blanked out, what the hell was happening. She didn't know what to say, she didn't know what to do. She felt like screaming at the top of her lungs, but that wouldn't help a bit. Before she knew it, she began to panic. Tossing and turning her head in all sorts of directions, just out of fear.

"Wha-How-I-I don't understand! What do you want from me?" Meg asked furiously. Deep inside she was truly scared, but she wouldn't let him know and give him that advantage.

"You know exactly what I want, Meg. I want you," he replied, his voice sent shivers down Meg's spine.

"Just leave me alone!" Meg yelled into the phone, then hit the "end" button on her phone. She breathed in and out slowly, trying to recap what just happened. How he managed to get her number was beyond her. This obviously wasn't some kind of prank he was trying to pull, he sounded serious. What if he manages to come into close contact? There wasn't anybody she could tell about it, nobody would understand. Her parents would think she was crazy for even thinking he knew how to get to them.

Meg decided to try to shake it off and go to bed. As hard as she tried, she just couldn't fall asleep. Crazy scenarios of Adonis spread through her mind like wildfire. He could be extremely dangerous, hurt her again. But maybe this time he wouldn't just hurt her mentally, she had to avoid him at all costs. Would she never be at peace?

-------------------------

Morning came quick, and it was time for another day of school. Hercules rose out of bed, rather happily. _'I get to see Meg today,' _Hercules thought to himself, sounding like a 8 year old. He smiled as he went to his closet and pulled out some clothes for the day.

Hercules ran downstairs where his parents were at the table eating breakfast. "Morning!" Hercules said to them as he went and got himself something to eat. Hera and Zeus looked up from their meals and smiled.

"Well Hercules, you seem rather happy this morning," Hera said.

Hercules blushed a subtle shade of red, and laughed kind of embarrassedly. He didn't answer them, and just continued to pull his meal together.

Zeus gave Hera a look and said to Hercules, "So what exactly happened last night, son?"

Hercules continued to give off a goofy smile, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well, when I went over to see her she wasn't too thrilled. But then we went on a walk together, down to the park," Hercules explained, remembering every moment as if it just happened.

Hera and Zeus exchanged looks of interest and smiled. Hercules quickly noticed and exclaimed, "Oh no! Nothing happened, we just talked!" He laughed to himself, then sat down to eat his breakfast with an extremely awkward silence.

About a half an hour later, Hercules got into his car and drove off to school. He didn't exactly know what to expect, he thought maybe Meg would act as if last night did not happen and they weren't friends...Well, a step above acquaintance. Now that Hercules knew about her past, he understood that this was her own way of coping. Soon, Hercules approached the school and parked his car in the parking lot. As he got out of his car, he noticed Megara's car on the other side of the lot. He smiled to himself, at least she came to school.

The walk from the parking lot to the actual building was long...Well long from the perspective of tired and lazy high school students. As Hercules was walking, countless amounts of girls walked in groups behind him laughing and whispering. Annoying? Yes, but he didn't want to be rude and tell them to back of. That just wasn't who he was. Before he reached the door, one of the girls braved it out and actually opened the door for him. He smiled awkwardly and said, "Uhh, thanks."

Ignoring the girl, he continued down the hall in search of Meg. He couldn't find her anywhere, so he just walked to his locker. He was bound to find her in English class. After shutting his locker, Hercules headed to room 102 in hopes of finding Meg along the way. It even surprised him how special she was to him, and he didn't care if she didn't even feel the same.

Finally, Hercules approached room 102. He was a tad bit early, so there weren't many people there. Then he noticed someone in the far corner, Meg! He walked over to Meg and sat down in the desk next to her.

"Hey Meg," Hercules said.

Meg turned around and gave a tired smile. "Morning," she said quietly.

Hercules smiled and said, "You look awful." Being Hercules, he didn't really think things through before he said them. Speaking his mind was something he had a hard time with.

Meg rolled her eyes and replied, "Yes Herc, just what every girl wants to hear first thing in the morning."

Hercules stared down at the ground and began to fiddle with his fingers. "Oh sorry, I didn't mean that. I just meant...You look tired," Hercules said trying his best to apologize.

Meg gave a quiet laugh and said, "It's fine Herc. I just...Didn't get a very good sleep is all." She had thoughts about telling Hercules of the phone call she received the last night. It would make her feel loads better if someone knew, but she didn't want Hercules to worry about her well being.

The rest of class was in a nutshell...boring. Mr. Cookson just asked a few people about their partners. Meg didn't have to do a thing all class, which was a big relief. _DING!! _Went the bell, and everyone left the classroom. Once Meg left the room, Hercules followed straight after.

"Hey Meg, let's head to Math," he said, and they began to walk to their Algebra 2 class. There was no conversation on the way, only the sound of other conversation and the moving of feet could be heard. They chose to take the route that lead them through the Lower B Section Lobby, which was always the most crowded. There were all sorts of people that hung out there, sketches, preps, nerds, jocks, you name it. It was extremely hard to make your way through to the other side, due to the large crowd.

Meg tried her best to squeeze through the large amounts of students, but kept getting shoved in each direction. She stopped in place and sighed, she really hated when people got in her way. Before she tried to move again, she noticed something not too far away. _'No, it couldn't be'_ Meg thought to herself as she did a double take. Standing a few feet away from her was a person, who was also caught up in the crowd. But this person was standing perfectly still with a smile on their face. What Meg saw was Adonis, just standing and staring at her with a ridiculous grin on his face. She began to breathe heavier, and started to panic in her mind. She turned her head in search of Hercules, but he was stuck somewhere else in the crowd. Meg turned her head back to where Adonis was standing, but nothing was there. Just other people passing by, headed to their classes.

Was she going insane? Probably, just her mind playing tricks on her. Evil, dark, and ruthless tricks. She could have sworn he was standing right in front of her, but that was impossible. Just the fact that she was overtired, and he would've tried to approach her...wouldn't he?

Finally Meg managed to reach the other side of the lobby, doing her best to keep calm. She saw Hercules standing there, waiting for her.

"Hey, you made it," Hercules said, then began to walk the rest of the way to class. He looked over at Meg and noticed how worried she looked. "Meg, what's wrong?" he asked.

Meg looked up at Hercules and answered, "Oh, i-it's nothing." Even if Hercules did know what was going on, there wasn't anything he could do about it.

Throughout the rest of the day, Meg thankfully didn't have anymore scares. But she couldn't stop replaying what she saw in her mind, it looked so...real. At the end of the day, Meg went over to her car and drove home.

Meg was only half way home when she got stuck in traffic. She sometimes got stuck in traffic, but not often. What was even weirder was that she was just on some plain old street, there was never traffic on a residential street. It ticked her off because the whole line of cars was just sitting there, nobody was moving. The lane beside hers wasn't even moving, everyone was honking horns and yelling for a full five minutes. As stupid as it might have been, Meg got out of her car. It's not like anyone was going to move any time soon.

Up ahead there were lights flashing from police cars and ambulance's, surrounded around an intersection of streets. Cones and cops were all surrounded as well. Meg approached one of the cops with caution. When she got to him he yelled, "Hey lady, nobody is allowed over here at this moment!"

"Well why not?" Meg argued back.

"Because, there's been an accident. Some guy got in an accident with another, but from the looks of the damaged car it didn't look like an accident. Meg raised her eyebrows in shock, looks like this whole line of traffic is going to have to back up and find another route home.

"It's a real shame, that guy's hurt bad. The other guy who hit him must have left after, the car's empty," the cop explained to Meg, then he left to go investigate with other cops.

For some reason, Meg had a real uneasy feeling in her stomach. She tried quickly to shake it off, it was very unlikely that it was someone she knew. But for some reason, the feeling stuck and she just **had** to go and see who it was. Meg crossed the big yellow tape that read "Do Not Cross".

Thankfully for her, the other cops and paramedics were too busy to pay any attention to her. She noticed that they had already called for investigators to check out the crime, all sorts of people were searching the car. The car...that car looked strangely familiar. She focused in more on the car, and noticed that it was the same car that her parents owned. _'No...No it couldn't be, I'm sure lots of people have that car,'_ Meg thought to herself.

Megara continued on to where the body was, which was covered by a sheet...meaning whoever it was was already gone. When she moved closer to the body, one of the investigators asked, "Who are you?"

Meg looked up and asked, "Oh nobody...well, who got hit?"

The woman sighed and pulled something from out of a plastic bag. A wallet. "This is what we found, the wallet didn't contain an ID. But it did have pictures in it," she explained as she pulled out one of the pictures contained in the wallet.

"This is the man," she said as she held up the picture for Meg to see.

Meg's heart skipped a beat, she could barely breathe. The picture was of a man and a woman holding hands together. Her parents.

The woman noticed Meg's discomfort straight away and asked, "What? Do you know this man?"

"Know him? He's my father!" Meg yelled, she couldn't believe it. She knew it was going to happen, but nowhere near this soon! And from a car accident, none of it made sense. But there wasn't anything she could do, her father was gone.

The tears began flowing down from her eyes, how could this have happened. And to her dad of all people. If this was some kind of message from God that she was to be punished for all of eternity, then ohh boy was she getting it.

What about her mother? Did she know yet? That was highly doubtful, and she certainly did not want to be the one to tell her. All Meg wanted was her father back...but that's not even a remote possibility. Instead she just wanted to be alone. No, she wanted to find out who hit him so she could teach him a lesson.

"...Do you know who hit him?" Meg asked slowly in sobs.

The woman sighed again and replied, "No we don't. The car that hit his was wrecked a bit, but still slightly functional."

Meg sighed and continued to cry. "...You th-think I could go and look in the car?" She tried her absolute best to stay strong and keep herself together.

"What? No I'm sorry miss, but that is strictly against the rules," the investigator said straightforward.

Meg didn't know what came over her, she just got so angry. "PLEASE! I'm looking inside of that car whether you like it or not!" she yelled, then got up and walked over towards the car. Nobody tried to stop her, nobody bothered to say anything. She didn't know why, but she felt that if she looked inside of the car she'd find something useful.

The driver's door was completely destroyed and torn off, leaving the drivers seat exposed. The person driving must have jumped out of the car, before it hit her father's. Meg searched the front of the car, nothing really out of the ordinary...Nothing really out at all actually, the car was empty of items. The windshield was completely shattered into thousands of pieces, falling off of the car. Under the many many scattered pieces of glass was a folded piece of paper. How the investigators missed this was beyond her. Meg wiped the tears sliding down her face and picked up the note, trying to avoid getting cut with glass.

The note seemed to be folded neatly and practically unharmed...Almost like the intention of the writer was for the note to be found.

Meg walked behind the vehicle so nobody could see her, and unfolded the note. Tears continued to drip down and land on the paper, she didn't even care anymore. The note had fairly mess handwriting, most likely a guy's.

_'You had it coming.'_

**...Dang...PLEASE REVIEW.**


	6. Chapter 6

**The Awkward Stages - Chapter 6**

**Same disclaimer as the previous chapters...blahh blah blahh...**

It was about 6:45 ish when Hercules drove home that day. He had to stay behind for a meeting having to do with sports, the football team tryouts were going to be held in a few days. Then he had to go out and get some things for his mother at the grocery store...how manly. By the time Hercules had made it back to his car, it had began to rain outside. Hercules liked the rain, it was rather soothing.

The drive home was pretty relaxing, there weren't too many other cars out on the streets. The sidewalks were empty, why would someone be crazy enough to stand outside in the rain? As Hercules was driving, he saw something out on the sidewalk, just sitting there on the ground. _'What's that person thinking?' _Hercules thought to himself, and pulled his car over to the sidewalk.

The person sitting outside on the sidewalk happened to be none other than Megara...go figure. Hercules noticed that she was crying, but second guessed and tried to convince himself that it was the rain dripping down from her face. He hated it when someone cried, it made him feel awful. She wasn't wearing any sort of rain protection, no jacket, no closed toed shoes.

He walked over next to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. In reaction, Meg let out a startled scream and jumped up on the ground.

"Meg! Don't worry it's me, Hercules," Hercules said trying to calm her down. The rain falling from the sky was cold, plus the wind that was blowing which made it even colder. He wondered how long she had been sitting outside, no doubt they would end up with horrible colds.

Meg breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't move, she just remained where she was standing. One of her hands moved up towards her face and began to stroke what seemed to be tears.

Hercules didn't know what to say, what to ask. But it seemed to make sense if they got out of the rain. "C'mon Meg, let's get out of the rain," he said, then guided Meg towards his car. She nodded, then got into the passenger's seat.

Hercules turned the heat on when he got inside of the car, but didn't bother turn the whole car on. He didn't want to drive her anywhere until he knew what was bothering her. Both people had tons and tons of water dripping from them and on the seats of the car.

"What's wrong, Meg? What were you thinking, staying outside in the rain?" Hercules asked, not angrily, but concerned.

Meg didn't look Hercules in the eyes, but simply just stared at the ground. She knew that Hercules knew she was crying, so there was no need to try and hold back her feelings of sorrow. Meg continued to wipe tears and sob out loud, leaving Hercules very worried.

Hercules reached his hand out and grabbed hers. Meg noticed right away and pulled back, she didn't want to be touched or talked to. Bringing his hand back, Hercules said, "It's alright Meg, you can tell me anything."

Meg sighed and lifted her head, looking Hercules straight on in the eyes. Hercules could barely breathe when he saw her beautiful face, especially because of the slight moonlight reflecting perfectly off it. He took this moment to capture in every detail, her hair, although wet, was still perfect. And her eyes, even when she was crying she still looked like an angel.

Megara reached inside one of the pockets on her dress, then pulled out a piece of paper. She handed the paper to Hercules without saying anything. He unfolded the paper and read the words, _'You had it coming.'_ He didn't exactly know how to react, but it was obvious that it wasn't good. Hercules didn't know what any of it meant, or to who it was referring to.

"What is this?" Hercules asked, still staring at the paper.

"It's a note that I found inside of a car," Meg said. She knew Hercules wouldn't understand, but that's all she could really say at the moment.

Hercules looked at her. "Inside of a car? Who's car? I don't really understand."

Meg sighed and shook her head. "I found it inside of the car that killed my father," she said bluntly, her words getting mixed in with her sobs. She could feel her heart beating in her ears, and having that large lump in her throat that just won't go away.

Hercules was shocked, her father was killed? Was it on purpose? "Ohh Meg, I-I'm so sorry. What happened?" Hercules asked cautiously, he didn't want to say the wrong things and completely ruin the moment.

"I w-was driving home," Meg began, trying her best to keep her voice under control. "There was a long line of traffic, so I decided to see what had happened. A police officer told me that someone was caught in a car accident, and died. So, I snuck in and talked to another person to find out who it was. An investigator showed me a picture of the victim that was found inside of a wallet. It was my dad." Now Meg began to cry harder than before, choking on her sobs and shaking in her seat.

Hercules was taken aback, he felt horribly sorry for her. He wanted to help her, hold her, tell her it was going to be alright. He tried to find the right words to say, but everything he thought of could never come out of his mouth.

"D-Do you know who wrote the note?" Hercules asked.

Meg shook her head and said, "No. But the person who hit my father must have hit him on purpose."

"You think so?" Hercules asked.

Meg nodded her head and said, "The other driver jumped out of their car before it hit my father's, and left the note purposefully. I think I might know who did it." She had a serious look on her face, she was still thinking things through. Was it who she thought it was?

Hercules was now alert at her statement. "Who?" He asked.

Meg looked shocked, she didn't plan on revealing anything...it just slipped out. She couldn't tell him, she wouldn't. Meg shook her head and backed away slightly. "I-I'm sorry, but I have to go," she said as she opened the car door.

Hercules moved over in her direction and said, "No Meg, you're not walking home in this weather. I'm giving you a ride." He grabbed her wrist carefully, and guided her back in. She didn't refuse to go back inside of the car, she was actually rather relieved that he would give her a ride.

The ride back home was silent, and Meg was only dreading to see her mother. She could only imagine how she was feeling at the moment, her parents loved each other very much. Hercules pulled over on the street of Meg's house and stopped the car. He looked over at her with so much care, it was practically overwhelming. He gave a smile and said, "Goodbye Meg. I-I'm truly sorry."

Meg sighed and put on her best fake smile. "Thanks, i-it'll be okay. Bye," She knew it wasn't good that she was lying to herself, it would never be okay. It would never be the same again. Meg didn't even know what "it" was...Just life.

Hercules felt it would be polite and appropriate to walk her to the door, even if he would get wet. He hopped out of the car and walked beside her. No he didn't know how she was feeling, he wasn't even sure if he ever would. She has gone through things that Hercules has not yet, so it was hard when trying to comfort her.

They reached the door, rain still pouring down on them. Hercules stared at her and put on a smile that said _'It's going to be alright'_. She returned the smile, but hers not as great...it was rather fake and broken.

At that moment, Megara did something that shocked her to no ends. She approached Hercules and embraced him in a tight hug. He was exceedingly surprised and tensed up a bit, but then returned the hug. She began to cry uncontrollably into his chest, shockingly not wanting to let go...but that wasn't why she was crying of course. It was nice to have somebody, she found it odd that he was always there for her in every situation.

Hercules without thinking held her head, like he was pulling her in. He rubbed her head softly as a comforting gesture. This was something he probably would never forget, he didn't know what exactly brought it on. Being as vulnerable as she was probably wasn't easy.

Meg pulled away slowly, like she wanted to stay in his embrace forever. She smiled again, opened the door, then walked inside. Hercules stood there like an idiot, doubting that whatever just happened...happened. He continued to smile to himself, got into his car, and drove home...Which happened to be only a few feet across the street.

Hercules entered the house with the few bags of groceries that his mother had requested. He set them on the kitchen counter and unloaded them. By the time he was done, Zeus came downstairs and said, "Hello my boy, how was everything today?"

"Not so good actually," Hercules said as a matter of fact.

"Oh? What happened?" Zeus asked as he took a seat at the kitchen table.

Hercules joined him at the table and said, "Well...Megara's father Steven died in a car crash today. And Meg's taking it real hard."

Zeus sighed and shook his head. "That's a real shame."

Hercules nodded his head and furrowed his eyebrows, he wishes there was something that he could do. "I'm gonna head to bed, it's been a long day," Hercules said, then walked upstairs to his room.

-------------------------

Meg couldn't find her mother in the bottom floor of her house, she was probably in her room. She didn't want to talk to her, she just didn't think she could handle it. But she just couldn't ignore the fact that her mother was probably horrified.

The lights in her mother's bedroom were off, but she could hear the subtle sounds of crying. She opened the door slowly and carefully, making sure not to startle her.

Meg walked into the room and sat on the bed. Her mother, Melina, looked up at her daughter, tears coming down both of their faces.

"I-I'm s-sorry, Mom," Meg managed to say. Melina just nodded her head and continued to cry.

She had only been in there for a mere 15 seconds, and already she was beginning to feel horrible. "Goodnight," Meg said, trying to pull herself together. Quietly, she left the room and walked inside of her own.

Meg changed into her pajamas, and tried to brush the water out of her hair. She sat in front of the mirror as she brushed her hair. Then she stopped and sat, staring at herself in the mirror. Meg sighed, she had taken so many wrong turns in life. She would give anything to go back in time and fix them, but the only way to succeed in life is to keep pushing forward.

What she also couldn't get out of her mind was Hercules. He was every girl's perfect guy, everyone wanted to be with him. It surprised her that he actually cared for her, her out of hundreds of other girls at school. It's not like she didn't know he had feelings for her, but the only question was why? Why is it that the most sought after guy at school was falling for **her**. Meg hated questions she didn't know or understand the answers to, but isn't that life?

Meg sighed, she had cried herself out that whole day and was tired. She walked over to her bed and lied down on top. While situating her bed, Meg moved her phone that was still on the bed.

On the phone it read that she had 7 missed calls from the same number. Meg only figured who it could've been, but didn't want to deal with anymore of his shit. She sighed, turned out the lights, and went to a rather pathetic and uncomfortable slumber.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Awkward Stages - Chapter 7**

**Don't own it...Never will own it.**

_Meg was walking along the sidewalk of a neighborhood park, the breeze blowing through her hair. There weren't very many people around, and the ones that were around had began to make their departure. She sat down on the rim of the large fountain which was in the center of the whole park. There was nothing she expected to happen, she just wanted some time to relax and think things over._

_It was a bit later than mid day, the sun was shining fairly bright. A few seconds later Meg heard foot steps coming from another direction. She looked around, but didn't see anyone._

_"Who's there?" Meg asked aloud. There was no response, and the footsteps continued to grow louder. She began to grown tense, not knowing what to expect. A few seconds of panic passed, then the person finally revealed themselves._

_"Oh, Hercules it's you. Don't scare me like that," Meg said to Hercules, but he didn't respond. He just stood there in the shadow of a tree. He wasn't smiling, he wasn't frowning, just simply standing there with a somewhat tense look on his face. Meg stared at Hercules and asked, "Herc, are you okay?"_

_Again there was silence, and Hercules moved forward out of the shadow of the tree. Meg took a double take, was this for real? As Hercules stepped out of the shadow, he began to change immensely. Then right before Megara was none other than Adonis. He stood there with a smug smile on his face, arms crossed, and laughing. "You won't be protected forever!" he yelled, then started laughing maniacally. The laughing grew louder, and Meg began to grow fainter. She could barely stand any longer, then she just collapsed on the ground with the laughter continuing._

Meg shot up from her bed, panting and sweating. She looked around frantically to reassure herself of her surroundings. "Oh," Meg said panting. "A nightmare." Although it was just a nightmare, she couldn't help but think something like that could happen. Her mind was playing dirty tricks on her, she trusted Hercules...didn't she?

Her clock read 7:45. "Shit, I'm late," Meg said to herself as she got out of bed and rushed to get ready. Once she finished getting dressed, she ran downstairs expecting her mom to be there...but she wasn't. Meg grabbed a banana out of the kitchen, then headed out the door and onto school. Thank god the weekend was arriving soon.

Meg rushed into the building, by the time she got there everyone was heading to their lockers...sweet relief. She went to her locker and grabbed the books for her first few classes, then walked to English. When Meg got there, she noticed Hercules awkwardly sitting at his desk surrounded by girls. She smiled to herself, _'How cute.'_

The girls suffocating Hercules were none other than Alicia, Miranda, Becca, and Madison. They continued to tell him things like, "Hercules you're so strong." and "I love your hair, your so cute." Gosh, how annoying.

Meg didn't say anything, she just passed the crowd and sat down at her seat beside Hercules. He turned his head and smiled at her. "Hey Meg," he said. Once he began to speak to Meg, the girls all turned their heads towards Meg. Each one of them had looks of hatred and disgust on their faces, but Hercules didn't notice. He was to preoccupied with Meg, as a matter of fact.

Meg looked at Hercules and smiled back. The girls all rolled their eyes then spread to another part of the classroom. Meg had to admit, she liked pissing off those girls...the attention was a bit too weird, though. She never wanted to be one of those show girls who makes themselves look like idiots just to impress boys. Never would she sink that low.

She had to admit, she and Hercules have been getting along pretty well. It was a refreshing feeling, having a friend. The class quieted down when Mr. Cookson entered the classroom, whistling to himself.

"Good morning class," he said as he sat down at his desk.

"Good morning, Mr. Cookson," the class replied in monotone unison.

Everyone's head's turned in reaction to a noise made by the opening door. An unfamiliar looking girl entered the classroom with an uncomfortable smile on her face.

"Umm, hi. I'm new and they said to go here for my first period class," the girl said to the teacher.

Mr. Cookson nodded his head and said, "Yes, they told me you would be coming. Your name is..."

"Karina," the girl replied.

"Alright then, Karina, you can just take a seat umm...right over there," Mr. Cookson said, then he pointed to the seat on the other side of Meg.

Karina nodded her head and walked over to her seat. Meg didn't look very enthused, but she didn't really mind. As long as this girl wasn't some sort of insane freak who was going to stalk Hercules, she didn't care...but it wasn't any of her business what other girls did or said to Hercules, right?

Karina walked over to her seat and sat down. Karina's hair was a rather pretty blonde color that flowed down to her shoulders. Her bright blue eyes were what popped out the most, they made her appearance seem friendlier.

Karina turned over to Meg and said, "Hey there, I'm Karina." She held out a hand for Meg to shake. Meg looked at the hand, then at Karina.

"Megara," Meg said as she took Karina's hand and shook it.

Hercules looked over from behind Meg and waved his hand, Karina waved back. They turned back around and attempted to pay attention to what their teacher was trying to explain. The rest of the day flew by, and it was finally lunch time.

Due to having the same schedule, Hercules and Meg walked to lunch together. They sat at the same table, just the two of them. Meg didn't feel comfortable sitting with anyone else, and Hercules completely respected her decisions.

"So Meg, how are you?" Hercules asked politely.

Meg shrugged her shoulders, the whole day she's felt like crying. It's hard to accept the fact that one of her parents was gone, and it drove her mad trying to figure out who did it. She had a pretty good feeling in her stomach that she knew who it was, but that wasn't even a possibility.

Hercules noticed her uneasiness and asked, "I-Is there anything I can do?"

Meg shook her head and tried her best to smile. "No, there's nothing that can be done." He nodded his head in response, and then ate his food.

The people sitting at the table besides them were talking loudly about what seemed to be Homecoming.

"Hey Erica, who are you going to Homecoming with?" A girl asked.

"I don't have a date yet," she replied sadly.

The table continued on and on about dates, dresses, and the big football game before the dance. The actual Homecoming dance wasn't until the next Friday after the big football game. Meg completely dreaded Homecoming week, which was also known as Spirit Week. She dressed up with her friends at her old school, but this was completely different. She didn't have anybody this time, so what's the point in dressing up?

Meg rested her head on her hands and sighed. A few seconds later, one of the girls from the table came over to their table. She gave Meg a completely rude look, scanning her for a brief few seconds, then she turned to Hercules. The girl put on her best 'I'm the cutest person alive' face and asked, "Hey Hercules, wanna be my date for the Homecoming dance?"

Hercules looked at her and put on his best smile, but with a hint of awkwardness. "Umm, I'd love to. But I'm...I'm already going to Homecoming with Meg," he replied, doing his best to attempt to make up a story on the spot. He looked at Meg with a nervous and awkward look.

Megara's head shot up when she heard her name being said, and in the same sentence as "Homecoming". She stared at Hercules with wide eyes. _'What the hell is he thinking?' _She thought to herself, trying to think of what to say.

The girl named Erica looked at Meg and folded her arms. "Is that so? She doesn't look to thrilled. Come on Herc, just go with me, she's obviously not good enough for you."

Meg raised an eyebrow and said, "You may be right, but the fact is...I am going to Homecoming with Hercules."

Hercules was surprised to say the least. _'Wow, I didn't see that coming. But she's probably just saying it to get this girl to leave...'_ Hercules thought to himself, his high hopes suddenly sinking lower.

Erica rolled her eyes, sighed, then walked away. Hercules looked at Meg and smiled like a little boy. "Thanks," He began, his voice began to grow a tad bit sadder. "...You know you don't really have to go with me if you don't want to."

Meg looked at Hercules with a sly smile and said, "Of course I want to, Herc." She knew he would be pleased to hear answer, and she was feeling pretty good herself. But there were the consequences, buying a dress, telling her mother, and trying not to feel awkward around Hercules.

Hercules couldn't be more excited, he slowly began planning everything out in his head. He wasn't going to mess this up.

The rest of their day carried on quickly, then they finally reached the end of school. Everyone went home for the weekend, had a good time, blah blah blah. Monday felt as though it came quicker, maybe because everybody was excited for the beginning of Spirit Week. The theme for Monday was simply colors, each grade was assigned a color. The freshman wore blue, sophomores wore green, juniors wore purple, and seniors wore orange. Looks like luck was in her favor on Monday, considering that her favorite color was purple. She wore the usual long purple dress, this time wearing a fashionable purple cardigan over it. Meg put on her make up, but instead emphasizing the purple eyeshadow. She shrugged her shoulders, good enough.

Meg drove to school and parked her car, practically unnoticed. She looked around for Hercules, but couldn't find him. _'Hmm...He didn't look sick yesterday,'_ Meg thought to herself, then continued into the building. Meg hadn't realized how into everybody at this school was. Everywhere she turned it was something extraordinary that they were wearing. From large and poofy skirts, to big felt costumes bought at party stores.

Megara headed to her classes and did her best to stay attentive. It was hard to keep a straight mind, considering the fact that Hercules wasn't there. He always seemed to make the classes so much more amusing. Every time she would look at him, he'd either be making a ridiculous face, or doing something that was simply funny and adorable. Meg admired that although Hercules was a star athlete and the most popular guy in school, he still remained true to heart and childlike.

Meg was sitting in her U.S. History class, practically bored to tears. She was completely tempted to fall asleep, it wasn't easy trying to resist. Things soon changed when an excited and out of breath Hercules ran in the classroom.

"Hey! Sorry I'm late," Hercules said to the teacher as he handed him a pass. The History teacher rolled her eyes and sighed, then continued with whatever boring crap she was previously talking about.

Hercules quickly took his seat next to Meg. She couldn't help but laugh when she saw his outfit, he looked utterly ridiculous in purple. "Hey Herc, where've you been?"

Hercules pulled out his books from his bag and said, "Oh...nowhere." He seemed to be holding a secret, and couldn't help but act extremely excited. Hercules was never good with secrets...ever.

Meg raised an eyebrow and asked in all seriousness, "Herc, what are you hiding?"

He turned his head and said, "Oh oh nothing." Meg chuckled and rolled her eyes, what a child.

The day seemed to drag on slowly, Meg desperately wanted to know what Hercules was hiding. During lunch she managed to find out that it was a surprise, and that she would find out after school. How could you not be ecstatic about something like this? Very rarely would she ever get surprises, so this was a once in a lifetime chance.

Finally they reached the end of the day, and Meg couldn't wait any longer. She caught up with Hercules at his locker and demanded to know what the surprise was. "Okay Herc, it's the end of the day, what's the surprise?!"

Hercules turned around, smiled, and said, "Go to your car." Then he closed his locker, and walked away.

Meg continued to stand still, quite confused. _'What could he be planning?' _Meg thought as she began to walk to her car. She saw her car from a distance, nothing seemed to be different about it. Meg walked over and opened the back seat of her car to place her backpack there and saw something strange.

Laid out on the back seats of her car was a large zip up bag. The bag seemed to have something inside, so Meg reached over and took the bag. She slowly unzipped the bag inside of her car. Inside of the bag was an extremely beautiful purple dress, nothing like her usual purple dress though. This one was much more elegant and of a nicer shade of purple as well.

Her eyes widened to extreme proportions. She brought her fingers to her lips as she unconsciously whispered, "Oh my gosh."

"Do you like it?" came a voice, causing Meg to jump and hit her head on the car roof.

"Ow!" Meg yelled as she began to rub her head. She turned around to find Hercules standing beside the car, smiling eagerly. Meg got out of her car, practically speechless. Never before had someone done something like this for her, she never came across as special to anyone.

"Oh Herc, you didn't have to do this," Meg said, feeling bad but thankful at the same time.

Hercules smiled and said, "Of course. I mean, it's the least I could do."

Meg looked at Hercules with meaningful eyes, then embraced him in a tight hug. Hercules hugged Meg back, simply amazed with how well things went. Megara noticed other girls gawking jealously at her, sucks to be them.

**Like it? Kind of? Ehh, I'm kind of improvising as I go along. And please feel free to give me any criticism, anything that will help. And maybe if you have any ideas, I'll put them into consideration.**

**XOXO  
**


	8. Chapter 8

**The Awkward Stages - Chapter 8**

**Finally, I really own it! ...Okay, that was a lie to all of those suckers out there who really believed me.**

The rest of the week passed by rather quickly, it was quite amusing seeing how everybody else dressed up. Tuesday's theme was Under the Sea, some people dressed as mermaids, fish, pretty much everything imaginable. On Wednesday, everyone dressed in their pajamas for Pajama Day. Tv/Movie Day was on Thursday, everyone dressed as their favorite characters for different movies and T.V. shows. Friday finally came after all of the craziness, and the theme was school color day, which meant Blue and Gold. Meg wore a pretty blue shirt, a yellow high waisted skirt, with her hair pulled back of course.

Although she didn't admit it, Megara was pretty excited about the Homecoming Dance. It was one thing to manage to get a date, but another thing to be going with the one guy that everyone else in the school wanted...except her. Or at least that's what she forced herself to think. Meg and Herc were good friends, buds, he could at least respect that, which he did of course. Hercules was always putting others before himself, one of his very great traits.

When Meg told her mother of her date to Homecoming and showed her the dress, she almost fainted. Melina was very proud Meg was getting a jump into the whole high school thing, she didn't want her being on the outside looking in. It didn't bother Meg though, she quite enjoyed being on her own, it's what she does best.

Another plus of this weeks festivities was that Meg has gotten extremely close with Karina, the new girl. They both seemed to have similar mannerisms, similar senses of humor, basically like twins separated at birth. Karina also got close to Hercules as well, they were like the Three Musketeers.

So with a new best friend, a date to Homecoming, and the Homecoming Dance itself, Meg was able to take her mind off of the recent events that had been troubling her.

As Meg was retrieving books from her locker, Karina approached her.

"Morning Meg," Karina said with a tired voice.

"Morning," Meg said in return.

Coming up from behind Karina was someone Meg didn't recognize. He came over to Karina, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and smiled. "Meg, this is Evan. He's a new student here, and my date to Homecoming."

Meg smiled awkwardly and held out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

Evan smiled and shook Meg's hand. "You too."

Meg couldn't help but feel kind of strange around this person, but she had no information on him. It was probably just the fact that she was not good with meeting new people. She couldn't help but stare at him, he looked strangely familiar...but not familiar, if that made any sense.

Evan was rather tall, much like Hercules. He had short and shaggy black hair that fell across his face and met his eyes. His smile was captivating, the one that would make one's heart melt.

Meg was happy that Karina got a date to Homecoming, so things would be less awkward with Hercules.

Speaking of which, Hercules walked over to Meg, Karina, and Evan and said, "Hey guys!" He looked over at Evan and said, "Oh, hello there."

Evan smiled and held out his hand. "Hey, the name's Evan," he said.

Hercules took his hand and said, "Nice to meet you, I'm Hercules."

Karina took a look at her watch that read 7:55. "Hey, why don't we all head to class?"

Meg nodded and said, "Fine, let's go."

Hercules Meg, and Karina began to walk towards English class. Karina turned back to Evan and said, "Do you need help finding your class?"

"No, I think I'll be okay. I'll see you later," Evan said as he began to walk in the opposite direction.

-----------------------------------

Meg, Karina, and Hercules all took their seats when they reached their English class. Meg turned to Karina and asked, "So where's Evan from?"

Karina shrugged her shoulders and said, "He moved from...um...I think it was a city called Selinger City in a place that I don't remember the name of."

Megara's eyes grew wide. _'Selinger City? Th-That's where I'm from...How strange, maybe I went to school with him,'_ she thought to herself.

Karina noticed her uneasiness and asked, "Hey, you alright?"

Meg nodded her head and turned back around in her seat...how strange.

-----------------------------------

It was last period of the day, and everyone ran out of their classrooms and towards the gym. Pep rally time! Meg simply loathed pep rallies, all they did was stand and listen to people win stupid awards for stupid things. Another part of the pep rallies that Meg absolutely could not stand were the performances by the dumb ass cheerleaders. They all thought they were the best, when really they all sucked.

The pep rally only lasted for about half an hour, and finally it was time to go home. Meg couldn't be more relieved, she loved the weekends. She told Hercules that she would go to the football game and watch him play, which made him eager to do the best he could. Then after the football game, they would go back to the high school to the dance.

Megara and Karina arrived at the football game about five minutes into it. They grabbed seats in the center of the bleachers, right in the middle of **a lot** of screaming fans. It took a while for them to spot Hercules, but after a few minutes they managed to find him. The big lug with the number 1 jersey, as Meg liked to call him.

Passing down in front of Meg and Karina were a bunch of girls and guys from their school. They were laughing and hanging all over each other, kissing and acting drunk. Meg was happy as hell that she wasn't one of them. She didn't need some guy to bring her down, she didn't need someone to impress 24/7. They just looked foolish.

Meg shook her head and continued to focus on the game. Hercules' team was playing extremely well, about halfway into the game the score was 14-0. She had to laugh at how aggressive all of the guys were, so competitive.

A few minutes later, a few girls in the large crowd approached Meg. They pushed Karina out of the way, and sat on her both sides.

"Hey, so what's your name?" The girl on her right asked.

Meg raised an eyebrow, why the hell were they talking to her?

"Meg," she answered bluntly.

"Well," the girl on her left began. "We know you have a crush on Hercules."

Meg's eyes grew wide, what? _'What the hell? I don't have a crush on him, it's completely opposite! These girls are so dimwitted, what boneheads,' _Meg thought to herself.

"Let me think...no," she answered as a matter of fact.

Both girls laughed, not your average laughter, but that seriously annoying girly laughter. The kind of laughter you hear from girls that get completely wasted and act stupid around guys. "Haha, yeah right. We know your like, completely in love with him."

"We just wanted to warn you, if you expect him to like you back well...he doesn't," the girl on her right said.

"Oh?" Meg said sarcastically. She didn't care if he didn't really like her, but she knew that it wasn't true. Herc was head over heels for her, and she found it quite adorable actually.

The girl on her left rolled her eyes and said, "Yeah, Herc couldn't possibly like you. He's still getting over his old girlfriend, I bet he doesn't want anything to do with you."

Meg shrugged her shoulders and replied, "Hey, maybe you're right. But tell me this, why is it he and I are going to Homecoming together?"

It would be an understatement to say they were shocked, they were completely blown away. They did that "Ugh!" girly thing that girls do to act surprised, when really...they're just jealous.

The girls got up and walked back to their friends, they all began to whisper loudly and make ridiculous faces.

Meg couldn't help but wonder, his ex-girlfriend? She didn't know who she was, but she had to wonder, was she pretty? Probably beautiful, Hercules probably had pretty good judgement of girls. Did he love her? Who broke up with who? Megara hated that she was always so curious.

It was about an hour later and the game had finally ended. And of course, they won by a landslide with Hercules making the winning touchdown. All of the football players ran to the field where Hercules was and started jumping on him, making some dog pile.

All of the spectators on the stands stood up and cheered their hearts out, so Meg did the same. She stood up slowly, smiled, and clapped lightly. The cheerleaders down below where doing some stupid cheer, then they ran over and joined the guys hoping they'd be interested.

After all of the cheering was done, everyone began to leave. One social event done, and one to go. Meg wanted to head down and congratulate Hercules on making the touchdown, so she walked with the crowd off of the bleachers.

There were way many more people than what it seemed at the game, so a large crowd had formed off of the bleachers, around the food stands.

Meg was pushed, shoved, stepped on, pretty much everything imaginable. There were just so many people there, running to get out of there. She continued to trudge through the large crowd, trying to make it to the field. Then, something grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

Meg smiled, she presumed it was Hercules. So she gave in and turned around, only to be extremely horrified. Standing before her in the large crowd was none other than Adonis, now they were face to face.

It was impossible to try and escape, but Meg tried. She began to back away, but ended up hitting random people, then was shoved back in Adonis' direction.

He stood before her, smirking, and still looking exactly the same. Adonis grabbed Meg by the wrist and pulled her to the space underneath the bleachers, the amount of people began to die down a bit. Then, they were both alone.

Meg couldn't look Adonis in the eyes, it only brought her pain. "What do you want, Adonis?" she asked courageously.

Adonis laughed and said, "I want you, Meg."

Meg shook her head, "No, Adonis. I don't want anything to do with you. Please, just leave!"

This time Adonis shook his head, but he was still smiling. "I don't think so."

Adonis reached over and grabbed Meg by her shirt. He pulled her fiercely towards him until their lips met.

Meg was shocked to say the least, she tried to pull away, but he didn't let go. He simply only tightened his grip and moved his other arm around her waste.

_'No, this isn't happening!' _Meg thought as she struggled to pull away.

"Hey!" came a loud voice from the end of the walkway.

Adonis finally let Meg go and looked up, with a serious look on his face. Megara turned around, slightly out of breath. Standing before them was Hercules, sweaty, and still wearing his football jersey. He looked upset and completely concerned.

Hercules approached them quickly and angrily. He grabbed Adonis by his shirt and said, "Let her go!"

Adonis laughed out loud and said, "Haha, ooh I'm so scared. A sporty football player with an attitude."

Hercules slowly dropped his angry expression, sighed, and let Adonis go. He backed up a few steps by Meg's side, trying not to start anything.

Adonis then laughed like a maniac. He quickly walked towards Hercules, pulled his arm back, then struck Hercules in the face with his fist. Hercules groaned and stumbled backwards on his feet.

"Hey, what's going on here?" Came a voice, it was a police officer standing at the end of the walkway. He looked at Adonis fiercely, then Adonis began to run out the opposite end. The police officer followed suit, and fast.

Meg's mouth was ajar, she couldn't believe it. But that wasn't important, Hercules was hurt. She walked over to Hercules and they both sat down on the ground.

"A-Are you okay?" Meg asked, grabbing his shoulder and face checking for injuries.

Hercules sighed and said, "Yeah, I'll be okay. More importantly, are you okay?"

Meg shrugged her shoulders, of course she was alright now. But now that Adonis was here, things were going to be dangerous. That meant both she and Hercules were at risk.

"Who was that?" Herc asked.

Meg sighed, she couldn't keep this from Hercules, it was just too much. She and Hercules moved up against the wall, they were probably going to be there for a while.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Awkward Stages - Chapter 9**

"That guy...Well he, he's my ex-boyfriend, Adonis," Meg said.

Hercules nodded his head, but lightly. His head still hurt, but the pain was slowly subsiding.

Meg sighed, she was on the verge of tears, and was trying really hard not to let it all out. She could only imagine how overwhelming this must be for Hercules, he probably didn't want to hear any of this crap.

"We went out for a long time and...I-I loved him," she continued.

Not to say it was shocking from Hercules' perspective to say that Meg was actually in love with that guy but...Well he must have had something going for her.

Meg looked over towards Hercules and said, "Yo-You probably don't want to hear any of this..."

This caught Hercules' attention, he cared for her, he wanted to help her. He reached over and carefully took Megara's hand in his, not to scare her. It surprised him to say the least, Meg didn't pull away. Hercules gave a sincere smile and squeezed her hand for reassurance.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I just want to help," Hercules explained.

Megara nodded her head and replied, "No, it's fine. You have every right to know."

"Well, from what you saw, Adonis is a "bad boy". He's always had a stick up his ass, I wish I had known better," Meg began.

_'Sh-She's into the bad boy type?'_ Hercules thought to himself, feeling disappointed.

"It was the day of his big basketball game, and he was spending his time in detention. So I did what I thought what was right at the time, I busted him out. Adonis left for the game, but then I got caught and then was punished for God knows how long..."

Hercules nodded his head, it made some sense. "So, that's why you guys broke up?"

Meg was staring at the ground in deep thought, she then shook her head. "After detention that day, I went to the game to congratulate them for their victory. When I walked in the gym I saw Adonis...with his dirty hands wrapped around some other girl."

Hercules didn't know what to say, it even hurt him to hear something like that. How could somebody just go off and cheat on someone like Meg, she was...perfect. "Oh, Meg...I'm-I'm so sorry."

"H-How could I have been so stupid, he's such a pig. Then we moved here and I thought I wouldn't ever have to deal with him again...but of course this happens," Meg explains.

Their hands were still intertwined, but neither of them wanted to pull away. "A-And remember when I found this note in that car," Meg said as she pulled out the note that read _'You had it coming.'_ Hercules nodded his head and took the note in his hands to take a look himself. "And I have this feeling that...maybe he was the one who could have killed my father."

Hercules head shot up in surprise. "You think so?" he asked. It seemed plausible, but that seemed too intense for someone like Adonis...but Hercules didn't know him at all. From what he heard, he wanted to kill Adonis for what he did to her.

Very slowly, tears began to form and roll down Meg's face. It wasn't worth it, keeping her pain in. From past experiences, she thought it'd probably be better to let it out.

"Hey, come on let's go," Hercules said as he stood up. He held out his hand and Meg took it, standing up slowly.

"Go where?" Meg asked, whiping the tears off of her face.

Hercules turned and smiled. "Let's go to Homecoming," he said.

Meg's eyes widened, Homecoming? Now? "N-Now, Herc? I-I'm not even dressed, and I don't know if I'll..." Meg paused.

"Don't know if you'll what?" Hercules asked.

"I don't know if I'll...fit in," Meg confessed. Fitting in wasn't always something Meg worried about, she figured it would be the last thing she would ever care about. But some of the things that people do and say can take a serious toll on her, all of it just builds up...

Hercules took both of Meg's hands in his and said, "Hey, since when do you care about what other people think? It's just you and me, Meg."

Meg smiled brightly, he was right. And she didn't want to ruin Hercules' night any longer, so they both agreed to head to the dance.

When they arrived at the dance, they could hear music coming from the inside. A free parking space was found, and both Hercules and Megara walked into the building. They noticed several police officers standing about, just to keep the area secure.

So this was it, time to walk in together as Hercules and Meg, two friends. It was completely awkward to say the least. Hercules and Meg received many many stares as they walked into the gymnasium together. After the stares came the loud whispering, followed by the disturbing glares.

Both Herc and Meg exchanged looks, but then both shrugged their shoulders. Why should they care?

Megara tried for a few seconds to spot Karina and Evan, but they couldn't be found.

Hercules took Meg's hand and guided her to the dance floor, Meg just couldn't resist.

To make things even less awkward, the D.J. of course had chosen now to play a slow song. Meg rolled her eyes, how ridiculous.

"W-Would you like to dance?" Hercules asked Meg. "It's alright if you don't want to, I completely understand."

Meg saw the disappointment in his eyes, she couldn't say no to that. She took Herc by surprise and draped her arms over his shoulders. It took him a while to realize what was going on, but he then moved his arms around her impossibly tiny waste.

Hercules was enjoying it immensely, he hoped that he wouldn't wake up in bed realizing that this was all a dream.

Several minutes passed, this could possibly have been the longest song of life. Meg moved her arms further around his shoulders, now leaning her head on his chest. _'It's nice to have somebody like him...'_ Meg thought to herself. There were so many thoughts going through her mind, life had always been and always will be confusing.

She could hear Hercules' heart pounding quickly, it was quite admirable that he was nervous. And the song **still** hadn't ended yet.

Hercules pulled his head back with Meg still in his embrace. He stared at Meg for what seemed like an eternity. Slowly and practically without thinking, Hercules moved his head forward towards Meg's and...he kissed her.

The kiss took Megara by a surprise so great, she didn't even know if she was still breathing. Whether or not it was the right thing to do, Meg began to lightly kiss him back. Meg could feel the constant stares and loud talking going on.

Meg began to pull away, her eyes only opened slightly. She didn't pull back far, and soon the tears started to fall again. Her head began to shake and she whispered repeatedly, "I can't." She continued to whisper it, only to lean in and begin kissing him again.

Her heart was pounding crazily, how did this happen? Well the "how" was obvious, but what confused her was **WHY** she was doing this. Why exactly was she kissing him back? She had enough to worry about, and now she was giving in.

Seconds later, Meg pulled away. She couldn't bear to look him in the eyes.

"Why Herc?" she asked him, eyes closed, and head down in fear and disappointment.

"Oh, oh Meg. I-I'm sorry," Hercules said softly in sadness. The whole thing was such an impulse, he had no idea what came over him. He was truly sorry, he knew how wrong it was. What an idiot, he practically took advantage of her when she was weak. How could he?

Meg didn't know what to do, she didn't know what to say. What was there to say? She was equally to blame, leading him on like that. Without another word, Meg stormed off out of the building as quickly as she could. Normally she would have stopped and given those whispering girls a good talking to, but she had to get out of there. Meg mentally swore to herself, she knew she shouldn't have opened up so much. She actually trusted him, she actually considered him as nothing more than a mere friend. It drove her insane that she let her guard down, she knew that she shouldn't have had anything to do with him. Men like Hercules are usually nothing but trouble...but he seemed different.

Meg rushed outside to her car, she had to get away. She approached her car quickly and got into the driver's seat. Reaching over, she grabbed the door and slammed it shut. Knowing there weren't any people around, she leaned forward on the steering wheel and began to cry.

A few minutes passed, and Meg heard the sound of the passenger door being opened. She suspected it was Hercules, coming to apologize. But it was her fault too, so he deserved an apology as well.

"Hello, Meg."

Meg's head shot up in complete shock, that wasn't Hercules' voice. Sitting next to her in the passenger's seat was none other than Adonis, wearing his usual smirk. This was an absolute nightmare, and unfortunately she would never wake up from this one.

"Adonis," Meg said sternly, she wasn't going to stand this bull shit. She opened her mouth to say something, but something happened.

Adonis' hand shot up and he held something to her head. Meg couldn't tell what it was, but what she saw in the overhead mirror caused her to tense up immediately. Adonis was holding a gun to her head, whether it was loaded or not was beyond her.

"Drive," he said.

Where was Hercules when she needed him the most?


End file.
